Just a Little Tease...

Yes, those are miniature clothespins...

and Yes, I am staining them here...

Just another wedding project...

I am only teasing you.

I don't plan on telling you yet.

You will have to come back to see...

Mua, ha, ha, ha...(evil laugh)

Homemade Wedding Signs

For my friend's wedding that I am decorating,

we needed a way to tell people what we wanted them to do

as they entered the venue, so I decided to make some sort of signs.

I had found a pair of pretty, ornate frames in a white washed, 

goldish color that I thought would work perfectly...

except they did not come with glass in them...thats OK,

I can work around that....especially since I paid a buck each.

I decided that I wanted one to say "sign the book"

and the other to say "find your seat".

I picked out some ivory cardstock and used the paper 

backing from the frame as a template to cut it to size.

Then I stenciled my words onto the paper...

but it was a little crooked, so I tried AGAIN,

and AGAIN, and AGAIN. They were all coming out crooked!

Enter the hubby...

My husband said, 

"Why don't you draw a faint pencil line where you want 

each word to be so you can line up your stencil on it...

then you can just erase it when you are done."

He's smart,I knew I married him for a reason...

And of course, the words were straight the last time...

or close enough that I'm not making them over...

except that I had left a couple smudges 

on the paper from my stencil...ugh.

Another mistake...sigh.

all the mistakes I make have me feeling like a crafting hack.

Then I had an idea, why not distress the paper to make it look antiqued, and those smudges will just look like age!

I got out my distressing ink and a pouncer sponge brush,

and brushed over the whole surface, concentrating 

on the imperfections and around the edges.

I stood back and admired them...I think they turned out beautiful, 

but I wanted to take advantage of the fact that they had 

no glass and make them three dimensional.

I found a tutorial on how to turn basic dollar store crepe 

paper into beautiful little flower rosettes.You can find it here.

I made up some rosettes according to the instructions, 

then glued them into the corners of my frames.

Sorry that I forgot to take pictures along the way...

{Sometimes when I don't know how something will turn out, I totally forget to take pictures.}

But, I do have a really nice "after" picture,

What do you think?

Wedding Guest Book Makeover

I have been helping to plan one of my best friend's weddings.

I am doing all the decor and little details.

I found our guest book at a garage sale in a box of other

wedding stuff for ten bucks. There was also a cake topper,

plastic disposable champagne glasses, and more...

I figured all in all I paid about three dollars for this brand new Martha Stewart guest book still in the original plastic.

Yes, its nice, but that grey ribbon is NOT.

Her colors are pale pink and dark brown, 

so the grey was not going to work.

I figured it wouldn't be too hard to replace the ribbon.

well...

I couldn't find 1" grosgrain ribbon anywhere. Thanks, Martha.

I bet she sells it, but her stuff is overly expensive in my opinion.

So I went home hoping the 3/4" pink satin ribbon 

I already had would somehow work.

I started by cutting the ribbon with my Xacto knife 

where it goes under the protective sheet. 

Then I began to gently pull it off, being careful not to rip the book.

Yeah, right...

I tried not to tear the book.

Martha apparently uses some really good glue.

That poor guest book ripped to shreds...

LOOK!

It was at this point that I crossed my fingers 

and hoped for the best.

Time to try out the never ending roll of ribbon.

*crossing fingers*

This ribbon has also been used here and here.

I laid it out across the giant rip, and....

THANK GOODNESS, it worked.

It just barely covered the rip.

I used fabric glue and a paint brush to smear it onto the rip.

That worked fine until I saw a brown brush bristle under the ribbon.

NOT OK, I switched to Q-tips. Then I smoothed down the ribbon and wrapped it around the edges of the book.

I sure hope that glue dries clear...*more crossing of fingers*

Well, that darn glue DID NOT dry clear.

Well...I will deal with that later.

I need time to figure out what to do.

I attempted to distract myself by making 

something for the picture frame...

I found a perfect piece of brown scrapbook paper

and used pink chalk ink to stencil the monogram.

M is for her name, J is for his,

and the O is for their last name.

Then I cut it out using the piece of paper that had been 

in the frame as a template.

Then, I faced yet another issue...

The photo corners...ugh.

I got out my Xacto knife and used it like a seam ripper.

Then I put my monogrammed paper in...

and got this.

GREAT!

I have ribbon threads showing up on my brown paper!

NOT PRETTY!

Now what?

I tried to use my Xacto knife to get them out,

but that did not work.

Then I had a brilliant idea...

I glued a thin strip of pink ribbon around the inside 

of the frame to hide the threads.

Next, I needed to adress the pink ribbon that 

had the glue showing through...you could still see it.

I thought about making a few ribbon and lace

rosettes  to put along the top third of the ribbon...

but as you will see later, I used rosettes elsewhere 

and didn't want to over-do it.

Then I thought I should add another "floating" ribbon.

Meaning, I would just tack it down on the inside of the book 

and let it "float" on top of the other, wider ribbon.

I found a perfect, sheer pink ribbon and layered it on top.

That worked, but I can still see the glue 

through the ribbon a little bit.

Now I am wondering if I should add a bow like the original one.

Then my husband comes in and says he can't even read the monogram...Seriously? Now?

So, I took his advice and hand painted with pink paint right

over top of the chalk...

Are you ready to see the before and after?

Before:

and....wait for it,

wait for it...

AFTER:

I am pretty pleased with the results too!